AAA on Televisa: 2016-06-04

What happened: Psycho Clown won a spot on the Lucha World Cup team (which had already started the day before this episode aired.) He then lost to Pagano in the main event. Los Perros and Nicho cost each other matches.

What was good: Nothing. If you haven’t seen Pagano and want to see what he’s about, I supposed to the main event is good for that. Otherwise, skip this show.

Winner: Psycho Circus (Murder Clown splash Joe Lider)Match Time: 8:46Notes: No entrances. Eight minutes in, Nicho runs out and stares at Joe Lider, which is enough to get him to drop his stapler and generally be distracted. Murder Clown boots Lider and top rope splashes him for the win. Nicho taunts Daga on his way to the back.

Review: [ok] There was no real reason to see this match, but it was fine given who was involved. The Perros worked as heels, they set the usual structure, and nothing looked totally bad. They just didn’t do much exciting either. The finish was typical bad WWE stuff, with Lider giving up on the match just because Nicho happens to be there.

Winner: Psycho ClownMatch Time: 6:19Notes: No entrances. Before the match starts, Psycho Clown interrupts. (Announcers know it’s Psycho Clown coming out by the music, even though he and his partners have the same music.) Psycho talks about having a very tough match tonight against Pagano, but mentions he was on the World Cup last year, and wants the chance to be on the team again this year. Psycho Clown asks Marisela for a shot, while Nicho & Ricky Marvin are pleading for this not happen. Piero talks to Marisela, who apparently says OK.

All three rudos attack Psycho Clown to start the match. Psycho’s taken out but kicks out and rolls out, while Hijo del Pirata attacks the other two. Marvin & Nicho eventually stop Pirata, and take turns attacking Pirata until he’s eliminated. Teamwork against Psycho Clown doesn’t work as well, and he quickly turns it around on them with a top into both. Nicho & Marvin fight when they get back into the ring, with Nicho using the same weird submission to defeat Marvin. Nicho goes for it a third time on Psycho Clown, but is distracted by the Perros del Mal jogging to ringside and is pinned.

There’s a post match edit to the Perros going backstage. As soon as they do, the lights go out and the Pagano video plays, and he’s in the ring dropping Psycho Clown with a modified reversed DDT. A table is already in the ring, and Pagano sets it in the corner to powerbomb Psycho Clown thru. The Perros return to run off Pagano, who reunites with Nicho at the entrance.

Review: [ok] Just like the opener. Nothing especially bad happens (except for the lameness of the finish), but not a lot exciting either. They told sort of a story about everyone going after Psycho at first, but then dropped it and just strolled to the ending. This win didn’t seem like a big deal, and doing a Pagano table spot here was strange since you’d think they’d want to save that for the main event.

Psycho dive

Noti AAA

talk about the semifinals happening without any specific results

Rey Mysterio, Taurus, Johnny Mundo and Chavo Guerrero (footage of Hernandez?) are specifically hyped for the final. I don’t know. Taurus didn’t appear. They also hint about what would be the losers battle royal.

We see lots of shots of participants doing promos to the camera, but never actually hear the promos. Better to just hear Zuniga, I guess.

Winner: Pagano (Spanish Fly)Match Time: 19:33Notes: Pagano enters to the Familia de Tijuana music,, and boinks Psycho Clown in the head with a chair as he walks out. Pagano beats up Psycho Clown, including using the fork, for five minutes. Cameras try to find any concerned person they can find. Psycho Clown is perfectly fine after he reverses a whip, and breaks a chair on Pagano’s skull. Pagano gets buried by plastic chairs at one. point, with the fans throwing as many of them as Psycho Clown. Thumbtacks are used. Psycho Clown helpfully loiters out side the ring for the minute or so it takes Pagano to set up a torch and light a table on fire. (Pagano also blows a fireball at Piero, knocking him out.) Psycho, seeing the table lit on fire, decides to climb to the top rope facing the table. This ends with him going thru the table via Spanish Fly, though Pagano didn’t align the table correctly with the corner and they break one of the legs instead of going thru it. Tirantes ran out for the count. Nicho celebrates with Pagano. Pagano takes Psycho Clown’s mask.

Review: [below average] A match with lots of big extreme moves and not really any selling, except from exhaustion at moving around so much. They went way long, easily the longest TV match of the year, and this sort of violence becomes numbing with a lot of time. They didn’t seem to have enough ideas for the time they were given, with both guys doing the exact same table spot on opposite sides of the ring, and multiple aimless trips to wander out in the crowd to see what would happen. It’s not as though it really worked early, as Pagano’s opening beatdown dragged (but understandably so given the time to fill.) They gave up the pretext of doing a match and just obviously positioned themselves to take each other’s moves as blatantly as you’ll get – the finish was awful for that. This was not a style of match I normally likely and nothing they did change my mind on it.

There’s definitely a problem with that in some CMLL matches, but there’s at least an attempt at selling or a failed strategy that just happens to leave them in position for the move. At the end of this match, Psycho Clown spent what felt like a long time standing outside and staring at Pagano while Pagano set up the table and set it on fire, and then climbed up to the top rope with no attempt to do anything but set himself up for Pagano’s Spanish Fly.

I hated it when 187 used to do these things to set up some elaborate chair or table construction, but there other guys at least got out of the picture and sold. A lot gets blamed on Pagano (and he could’ve helped by doing more to Psycho so he did sell), but this was more a Psycho Clown problem and a weakness he has in many of his recent big matches. And they both could’ve used help from the production crew – those matches in CMLL come across stronger because they’re smart enough to show the guy doing the action and hide the guy waiting for it to happen. AAA didn’t do a great job of hiding Psycho Clown here.